I know I enjoy getting glimpses into other writers' minds when they share where they are with a story, especially when some of those stories are still near the edges of their radar in terms of being released. I figured I would share some of the things I am working on and give you a bit of information about their status in the process. A word of warning before we proceed, however. Keep in mind that some of these books are still in the creation process, so they are still very much apt to change. In addition, the synopses on the covers you will see are most likely going to change. Currently, these are placeholders, but they do reflect my intentions (more or less). Side note: you might think I'm a bit odd for creating the book covers before I've written the story. "That's not how (insert famous author's name here) does it!" Well, f***k (insert famous author's name here)! is what I say. I'm not that person and this is how I do it and find inspiration to keep plugging away. We cool with that? Okay then, so, here we go...
First, I present to you, Lathem's Lament. This is a Southern Gothic novel I have been kicking around since 2010. I wrote it after reading several classical southern writers such as Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Caldwell, to name but a few. I enjoyed many of their stories so much that I decided to try my hand at a story that was brewing during my reading. This is the end result. This story is already in print, but won't be available to the public until later this month or (very) early April. I've received a lot of positive feedback from my beta readers and have a couple of other beta readers going through it now. Anyone familiar with Faulkner's As I Lay Dying
will see a similarity in the book's format. I really loved how he wrote each chapter as a different character's POV and wanted to do that with one of my own.
Next, we have Rabbit on the Run, another Southern Gothic, this time from the Depression-era. Currently, this is a novella. I just finished the first draft of this story this past week. For some reason, I'm finding that writing southern literature is loads of fun. I questioned whether southern literature still had a sizable audience and then remembered that Joe R. Lansdale is doing pretty well, so I guess the answer is Yes. Anyway, I show some of the hideous mentalities of society in this story, about a black man wrongfully accused of killing a white girl and flees a lynch mob. Hopefully, it will meet with a warm reception. I'll have to see what my beta readers say first.
Youthanasia is my first foray into real science fiction. It deals with the pros and cons of curing aging, something that really piqued my interest when I listened to a presentation given by a scientist named Aubrey de Grey. He's very passionate about this field of study and claims that we will eventually cure aging, and probably sooner than anyone thinks. If that doesn't grab your attention and give it a good shaking, then you need to check for your pulse. Needless to say, the gears of my imagination began to spin and I came up with this story, which follows a geneticist who has secretly taken a serum he and some other researchers developed, which stops the aging process. The reader gets to see the pros and cons of this polemic subject first-hand from the character's POV and decide for themselves whether they would want to live forever, or not. While researching this story, I corresponded with a biologist in the field to pick his brain on some of the finer points. Hopefully, I will do his feedback justice. Regardless, I will dedicate this book to him and probably send him a free copy for all of his help.
This is a book I'm sure I've mentioned in the past. Carniville is a locked-room mystery I created using an apartment complex of sideshow workers when they were not touring the freak show circuit. First, I wanted to try my hand at writing a locked-room mystery, something which seems very difficult for me not only to solve when reading one, but also to develop using my feeble brain. Secondly, I decided, failing to achieve that first point, I'd at least have an interesting cast of characters for a good crime story. During the writing of this story, the words flowed nicely. Eventually, however, I hit a brick wall with the plot, so I put it aside (yes, these other stories are what happen when I fall into a rut during my writing). I will let this one mellow until I can return to it with a solution for traversing that wall I mentioned. The cover's too damn good to let go to waste!
Last, but certainly not least, is Consuming Darkness. This is the first novel I ever wrote. This is what started it all. Yes, you can blame this abomination for the madness I unleash upon the world from my twisted, depraved mind. Originally, this was titled The Shadow People. I've rewritten it three times (so far). There's another rewrite waiting, I just haven't begun yet, but I have a good idea of what I want to do with it. I hope that this book will eventually be a fresh new horror story (in case you don't know my feelings for the horror genre to-date, here it is) with an admiring nod to Lovecraft's Call of Cthulu.
So, there you have it. Several of the books I have lined up for your future reading pleasure. I can assure you, that's certainly not all of them. There are a couple of other stories in the works, at various stages, I just don't have covers for them, so there isn't really anything to show.
UPDATE: Seems I forgot to link to my feelings on the current state of the horror genre. Consider it fixed. Like I said, I have a feeble mind.
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